Oldskoolrebel's Terrain Board Project (Picture Heavy)

[Elk101]

Andy, if you want to make a pond, make a pond 
You can always make an additional tile with a marsh too - or fill in the pond and turn it into a marsh if you need to...

Absolutely! 

[Wirelizard]

Got to ask, who makes the ducks, or are they scratchbuilt?

As always, having terrain board envy over here, good luck with this project!

[oldskoolrebel]

Got to ask, who makes the ducks, or are they scratchbuilt?

As always, having terrain board envy over here, good luck with this project!

I am not sure, they're distributed by www.war-bases.co.uk

[Mason]

Like these??

I see that you have already done your research, sir.
 

[oldskoolrebel]

I've not been inactive... I'm just waiting on the filler drying. It's been about 24 hours since I put it on and it's still a bit spongy. Infairness I did put more than a regular skim on!

In light of this I decided to make some progress on the trees.



Here you can see a little pile of trees that I'm working on; 24 Conifers and 10 deciduous to add to my existing collection. They're woodland scenics, I think they are some of the best tree armatures on the market although they do need a little work. I've spend some time removing the plastic basing pins, cleaning up the mold lines and twisting them into a shape. During the next couple of days I'll be drilling and adding a metal pin.

In clearing out, I also discovered another 6 painted deciduous trees without any foliage.

...I suspect that I may need some additional clump foliage.

[oldskoolrebel]

A picture of the boards taken earlier tonight. It shows some of the progress.



The filler on the hills is finally dry! I took a trip down to B&Q last weekend and got them to cut some edging for the board; 6mm thick MDF.

I'm a clumsy bugger, coupled with the fragile edges on the foam, this could prove a recipe for disaster. I've glue the stripping on the protect the board. Some rudimentary sanding later and everything seems to fit together nicely.

I've seen boards with this style of construction, and one thing that I noticed was the gap between the striping and the foam. Since taking the above picture I have ran a very fine layer of filler around the edges of the board. I've also repaired any scratched or marks on the board using it. With any luck it will be dry tomorrow.

Next step is the gloop. This will provide a texture and also lots of additional protection.

Cheers
Andy

[OSHIROmodels]

Coming along nicely matey 

cheers

James

[Captain Blood]

GLOOP! 

The answer to all terrain questions... 

[tomrommel1]

looking very very good indeed

[Eric the Shed]

very handsome

[Malamute]

Getting there. Its great to be able to share the begining, middle and hopefully end of the build, it feels like we're all involved and on the journey with you.

[Jeff965]

And don't forget to put up the recipe for your gloop, always interested in gloop . Can't wait to see these finished btw

[Hu Rhu]

Like the progress so far, looking forward to seeing how this develops.

And don't forget to put up the recipe for your gloop, always interested in gloop .

+1

[oldskoolrebel]

Thanks for the kind comments guys.

Getting there. Its great to be able to share the begining, middle and hopefully end of the build, it feels like we're all involved and on the journey with you.

I found Richards threads very useful. I hope that others might find mine useful.  Also the wagons arrived. They look great! Thanks again!

Like the progress so far, looking forward to seeing how this develops.

+1

Richard is the man who brought it to my attention. I've ended up with two recipes for the gloop, one of model bases and one for terrain boards.

I use 1 part PVA, 1 part paint and 1 part sand. For models I use a variety of grain sizes, up to some larger pieces that are maybe 5-6mm. 

For the board I don't use such a wide variety of large grains. I did in the past and I have found that individual terrain pieces don't sit on it well. I'm currently experimenting with Kiln dried sand from B&Q (I think I'd used sharp sand previously). We'll see how it goes!

In the image below you can see the results of the filler and PVA glue. It's hopefully help to strengthen the boards and prevent it from damage. The PVA will help to make sure that the boards don't absorb as much paint, and I should now be able to spray paint them.


As you can see the gloop goes on quite thickly. All six boards have been covered now. I've deliberately left the depression untouched- this means that I can finally decided whether to turn it into a marsh or a small body of water.



I won't be able to work on them over the weekend. I'm in two minds about the next step- I'm not sure if I should give them a spray undercoat to 'bind' everything together and add extra protection, or just start painting.

Kind Regards
Andy

[AndrewBeasley]

Take care with a spray undercoat - I've covered foam with two heavy layers of paint only to watch it dissolve when I sprayed on the top